Hunting after Gun Season
Filed under: Ask Grant, Hunting Tactics
Dear Mr. Grant, I enjoy your web tv very much. I have found your information has been very helpful in all my hunts. I hunt every season and use all the helpful hints that you share. Thank you very much for not being one of those greedy hunters that horde their tricks of the trade. I am fairly new to the trade and have only been hunting for the last 3 years. I have dropped one 4 point buck and two does in my short time hunting. I hunt bow, firearms, and muzzleloader. I live in western Indiana and it is in the middle of muzzleloader season and the start of late archery. You say that this is the time to hunt the food sources and I have been, but with no luck. Should I go deeper into the woods or should I just stick it out and hope they will come back in? I have seen them in my fields, but since firearms season came in the deer have vanished, especially the mature bucks. Am I doing something wrong? Thank you for your time, Jason
Jason,
Thanks for the kind words and congratulations on your success!! Deer, especially mature bucks, are very good at avoiding danger. Deer tend to avoid open fields during daylight for several weeks after firearms season (lots of hunting activity) in most states. During December, I try to hunt travel corridors rather than directly over food sources unless I have access to food plots that haven’t been hunted much previously that year. The chances of observing mature bucks during daylight hours are much greater if you hunt areas that mature deer don’t associate with danger.
Such locations are rare, but well worth the effort to find during the late season.
Growing Deer together,
Grant
